Last night Mandi, Michael and I took a short trip up to Austin for the AMA Austin Chapter’s Wild Wild West Social Media networking event sponsored by Business Wire and FG Squared. We had been told that with that theme all attendees would need to wear a cowboy hat. So I dashed out before we left to find a few hats and we set out on our way. We pulled up to the beautiful AT&T Conference Center and donned our hats, and made our way upstairs. With a quick scan of the crowd we soon spotted an astonishing zero folks in hats. Yep…not a one. For a minute it was a lot like showing up for a costume party and being the only one in fishnets and bunny costumes, but quick on our feet we simply removed our hats and tried to blend in with the crowd.
Shortly after our arrival we managed to find our friend and panel member, Erica O’Grady. She quickly snatched up the hats for the entire panel to wear. So here is the scoop on what was discussed, and the fashion run down on their fabulous head wear:
Simon Salt, Director of Emerging Technology and Media for the Austin AMA started us off (wearing a fabulous tiger print cowboy hat) with the introduction of the superstar panel of Erica O’Grady, Giovanni Gallucci, and Dave Evans.
Erica O’Grady (ReinventingErica.com)
First up to the podium in her pink sequined hat Erica gave us her insights on social media marketing and some new and upcoming social media tools. We knew it was going to be great because she gave us Mom 2.0 Summit flashbacks and used the word vagina (and now I have too, my mom would be so proud!).
Once the laughter had died down, she reminded us that social media is about relationships and while tools like Twitter can be manipulated to produce large amounts of followers, true influence comes not from numbers, but from the ability to actually pick up a phone or send and email and make something happen. How to you achieve true influence? By having real conversations with people. It will take time this way but relationships formed over time and communication are often the ones that last the longest and mean the most. This sounds a lot like a lesson for life too, don’t you think?
She followed up with some great tools that we can all use to help us get out there and start conversing.
Tracer (Tynt.com)
A great tool for tracking where your content is being copied and pasted and then also includes a link to your site and full content any time portions of it are copied and pasted. Currently in closed beta, so it may take a week or two for them to grant you access, but well worth the wait we think.
HelpAReporterOut.com
Created by Peter Shankman (www.petershankman.com) this is a great tool for “introducing” journalists who want to tell a story, with the people/marketers who have a story to tell. We signed up for this one this morning, and if you are in PR or are looking for some help to get your product/business out there, you MUST check this one out!
PitchEngine.com
Cool online service that allows you to post your social media press releases and all kinds of other content like video and images for quick and easy distribution. We’ll definitely be looking into this one!
Giovanni Galluci aka Social Media Ninja (Galluci.net)
In a super informative talk entitled “Optimizing Social Media” he gave us some great examples of a his tactics for getting the most out of social media. He was quick to point out that while he and Erica didn’t have the same philosophy on how to gain influence, that at the end of the day their goal is the same.
He showed us a great new visual search engine called Viewzi.com and discussed some of their trials and successes they have experienced during start up phase. He made a point to reiterate Erica’s point on having real conversations. “You never know who you are talking to, people can be connected in ways you can never imagine,” he said and advised us to never assume that some is insignificant.
Dave Evans (readthis.com)
And last but certainly not least was Dave Evans, in a bright green, fur trimmed blinking hat, to give us more on his book, “Social Media In An Hour A Day”. He gave us three great rules for using Social Media to the best possible advantage:
1. Understand Your Business
This includes not only understanding your product or service, but also understanding your audience and disclosing your interest and who you are before you even begin to talk in the world of social media.
2. Measure Results
You have to have a method to determine if what you are doing is actually working. Here is the list of tools he listed:
Google Alerts
BlogPulse
Cymfony
Techrigy
Radian6
Collective Intellect
BudURL
3. Establish ROI (+/-)
Not everything you try will work, somethings will fail and produce a negative ROI but you must first get a baseline measure of what is happening for you right now and then “trend and track” what happens with each social media campaign you run.
He also gave us some great book references that are definitely worth a read (or two!):
“Ultimate Question”- Fred Reichheld
“It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For” - Roy Spence
The panelists all admittedly took longer than their allotted 8 minutes of speaking time, but no one seemed to mind (we sure didn’t!). And before we left we heard word that the AMA will be conducting these kinds of events in other places, including San Antonio, so if you missed this one you have to make plans to attend the next!
